by Alyssa Cole
“Only if you say no to this, too.” He raised his arms, moving them in time to the music. He continued his dance, expression patient, and she realized that during all of their lessons they had never truly danced together. He’d shown her a move and she had repeated it for him, but they had never moved as one. She extended her arms, taking her position, and he smiled.
They didn’t have their full range of motion in the small space; arms brushed as they rose and fell; shoulders knocked as they turned, and when she finished her spin facing away from him it was natural when her backside brushed against his groin. They swayed like that as the song ended, and didn’t resume their starting positions when the next song began. Instead, his hand went to her arm and turned her so she was facing him.
“I know a man fancying you is nothing new but—” he dipped his head so she couldn’t see his eyes “—I do. Quite a lot.”
She’d seen Amir when he let his quick temper get the best of him; they’d gone toe to toe more than once. But that head dip, and the hesitancy in his voice, told her more than his words had.
“Amir?”
His head lifted and his gaze clashed with hers. She didn’t even have to say the words that were on the tip of her tongue before he was following through on them. His head dipped again, but not in uncertainty this time. His decisiveness had returned, and there was no hesitation as his mouth covered hers. This kiss wasn’t sweet, like the one they’d previously shared, despite the fact that he tasted of spiced honey. His lips were firm and demanding, and when he slid a hand up the back of her neck to hold her in place, heat raced through Bertha’s body.
The spark she’d felt during their celebratory kiss hadn’t been a one-off. Her body was humming from his touch, and she wanted it to sing. She slid her hands around his waist and flattened her palms against his back, feeling his muscles tense under her touch through the fabric of his shirt. She took his bottom lip between her teeth as she moved her hands, worried it a bit, but then his grip on her tightened and his tongue pressed into her mouth and Bertha moaned with pleasure.
They kissed until her lips felt raw and bruised, hands running over each other’s bodies. She could feel his hardness pressing against her, and she forced her hand between them, down low so she could stroke his length through his pants. It had been too long since she felt this rush of emotion: fear, pleasure, curiosity, and desire, all tumbling around in her belly, creating an ache that only Amir could soothe.
His hands slid to the front of her dress and Bertha felt the release of pressure as he undid the buttons holding the fabric tight against her breasts. Then there was a different kind of pressure as his fingers found her nipples, teasing them as his mouth passed rough-gentle over hers, only moving away in the brief instances when he needed to breathe.
Bertha had never been what people would consider impulsive—her life had been committed to weighing and measuring what she could get away with for as long as she could remember—but it seemed Amir had changed that. She began gathering the material of her skirt, lifting, with one mad idea in mind. It seemed the madness had gripped Amir as well because he was raising his long suit shirt. She pulled one hand away from her skirt to run her hand over the furred ridges of his stomach and the waistband of his pants. Her fingertips delved into the waistband, then his hand clamped around her wrist.
“Look at me,” he said, and for a second she wished she had disobeyed him because his eyes revealed everything. Adoration and adulation, tinged with something darker and deeper. “I’ve screwed for fun before. This isn’t fun, if we do this.” A bit of the seriousness left his face then, replaced with a cocky grin. “Not just fun, that is.”
She slipped her hand into his pants completely, circling thumb and forefinger around his girth. “I’ve screwed for profit before, and I have to say I think we’ll both profit from this. We’ll have fun, too. But there’s not just anything between us.” She squeezed him tighter, stroked, perhaps to distract from the fact that she was going to reveal something of herself. “There hasn’t been since you walked into my kitchen.”
He thrust up into her hand and at the same time pulled her into a kiss, and after that there was no more talking. His hands moved down to grip her thighs and his thumbs stroked rough circles against her sex. She pumped her fist around him with short, tight jerks. When they were both panting and muffling groans, he turned and bent her over the stack of tablecloths. The sweet pleasure of him pushing into her was tempered with the briefest flash of doubt.
Not like this.
Then he stopped, suddenly leaving her empty.
“I want to see you,” he panted, switching places with her so he was sitting back on the linens. She lowered herself onto him, watching his pleasure at her clench express itself in the arch of his brow, and the way his eyes slammed shut and then opened. For a moment, she exaggerated her pleasure, threw her head back and bit her lip; habit was hard to break. Amir leaned up and kissed her again, then rested his forehead against hers as she rode him.
“I want to see you,” he groaned. His hands cupped her face, stroked her neck and clavicles, as he pumped up to meet her downstroke, but his gaze never left hers. Heat built in her as he watched her, and annoyance.
What did he want?
But he’d just told her.
She placed her hands on his shoulders and instead of meeting his gaze in challenge, she simply watched him. She didn’t fake a damn thing, just moved, and then she felt it. It was as if something in the way Amir watched her, and held her, allowed her to feel her passion in a new way. Each stroke within reverberated through her body. The soft brushes and hard squeezes of his fingertips drove her closer to the edge. Even the friction of her bunched dress against her skin sent tremors through her. And when he began pumping wildly into her, eyes still locked on hers, Bertha bit back a scream as ecstasy filled up every bit of her and searched for release. She turned her head and bit down on the meat of his hand as her climax took her, and then he arched into her, surrendering to his own.
As Bertha drifted down from her bliss, she could hear the music in the background once more, reminding her of where they were. She touched his face gently, and he kissed her fingertip.
Yes, this Amir was going to be a problem.
Chapter 10
Amir lay back on the couch in Bertha’s apartment, watching her as she dressed for the pre-Election Day party. The blood was only just starting to flow back into his brain; he’d been the one to pull her down onto the couch, but she had rendered him useless when she crawled onto his lap. The week since Azim’s wedding had been a blissful blur. Bertha and her girls handing out suffrage pamphlets to men in the streets of Harlem. Amir bringing in Syed to be his line chef during the busier dinner hours as the number of guests exploded. And every free moment that hadn’t been devoted to the vote or to the club, they’d spent with each other: touching, tasting, mapping each other’s bodies with fingertips and tongues.
It seemed they couldn’t get enough of each other. Amir had even started to spend the night, after making a show of leaving if anyone else was around, of course. Now he knew that she tossed and turned in her sleep, as if all the brisk energy that carried her through the Cashmere still flowed through her even when she tried to rest. He knew the taste of her in the morning, evening, and afternoon.
Nothing else mattered when he was with her, which was a dangerous thing. Another letter had come from his aunt about his land, and he would have to make a decision that didn’t involve choosing between Bertha’s soft lips and softer thighs. That didn’t involve her sharp wit and the way he felt an actual pain in his heart, like he’d eaten too much jhal-lanka, every time he looked at her.
“Can you zip me up, baby?” she asked, looking back over her shoulder and Amir felt something that was startlingly close to anger. Not at her, but at even the possibility that he would have to leave her. He missed home—sometime the ache caught him unawares, triggered by the most ridiculous things—but thinking of a life without her sharp words and soft sm
iles singed like a hot pan that he had taken in his hand and couldn’t let go of.
He lifted himself from the couch and moved to her, sliding his hand into the back of her dress and splaying it over her skin.
He looked at her face in the mirror and took in their reflection. Her eyes were closed and a gentle smile tugged at her lips. This was his Bertha, the one he was sure no one saw but him. It did something to him, to know that some part of her was reserved just for him. He hoped she knew that it was the same for him; though they still butted heads over some things, he also backed down instead of pushing, a feat his family had never thought could be achieved. He told her his hopes and his fears, though not all of his dreams for his future. Possibly their future. He was impulsive, but knew that telling her the idea he’d been mulling over would be pushing her too fast. If she didn’t feel the same way...
“I wish I could stay like this sometimes,” she said, voice low. “The way I am when I’m with you.”
“Like what, love?” he asked.
“Like…myself,” she said in a soft tone. Then shook her head and opened her eyes. “Tonight’s a big night. Zip?”
And just like that, his Bertha was gone and Bertha the boss was back. He hoped that version of her was his, too, but he couldn’t claim either version until he had decided what to do about his land.
“Are you nervous?” he asked as he zipped. “About tomorrow?”
“I just want the election to be over with,” she said, giving herself a final glance. “I was silly enough to let myself start getting hopeful, and that never leads anywhere good.”
It didn’t take a leap of imagination to conclude she was talking about more than voting.
“What about you?” she asked, shifting the subject away from herself. “How will you feel tomorrow if I can vote and you can’t?”
He knew why she had to ask; the very first time he’d heard about the suffragettes his reflexive response had been a resentment that surprised him. He’d considered himself more evolved than most men, had worked side by side with women in his political groups back home, and his instinct had still been to think that his own interests should be addressed first. “Well, I guess I’ll have to get better at our political debates and try to win you over to the socialists.”
She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “I do look good in red,” she murmured before swaying out the door. Amir followed. He couldn’t argue with that.
They headed down into the club and as soon as they stepped on the floor business tugged them apart. There were glances and the occasional touch, but Amir was sweating in the kitchen with Syed, chopping and prepping, frying and sautéing. She was on the floor, managing the girls, the bar, the bands, the stage, and the surge of people who had shown up for the special event.
Once he got into the zone in the kitchen, there was nothing but the orders and fulfilling them, making sure each plate was perfect because this night was important to Bertha and she was the most important thing. Hours went by and eventually the orders started to slow.
Amir took a drink out of a pitcher of ice water, used a kitchen towel to wipe his brow. Syed dropped onto a stack of milkcrates.
“I hope that was the last of it,” he said. “I can’t even see straight right now, Pintu.”
The doors swung open and Bertha strode in. She flopped onto a chair beside Syed. He’d known things were busy out on the floor, given the number of orders that had rolled in, but it was the first time Amir had ever seen her sit on the job.
“I’m starting to wonder if you’re sprinkling something extra in the food,” she said. “Or if it’s just election fever.”
“Maybe a bit of both,” Amir said.
“Modesty doesn’t suit you,” she said. She was looking at him with that heat in her eyes, despite her fatigue, and for a moment he wished they were alone.
“Maybe going back home won’t be so bad,” Syed said, scratching his side. “You can open a restaurant and make your Bengali American food. You’ll be the star chef of Calcutta by next year.”
Bertha had been slack in the chair, but Amir saw the moment her neck went stiff and her mouth went tight. She eased her way up as the slouch left her back.
“You have plans to go back to Bengal?” Her voice was casual, in the way a shard of ice could casually slide off of a sloped roof and slice you open.
Amir’s throat tightened. He hadn’t known how to tell her about the letters; all the talking they did and he’d managed to avoid bringing it up. If he didn’t go back, she had no need to know, and if he did…
“There’s a problem with my land and I might have to go back,” he said with a shrug. “It hasn’t been decided.”
“It hasn’t been decided? Is someone else making the decision for you?”
He tensed at her tone. “Look, I’m trying to figure this out. It’s not your problem, so don’t worry about it.”
He knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words left his mouth.
She stood up and adjusted her dress. “I guess I won’t then.”
Amir bit back against the frustration building in him. “Bertha wait—”
“For what? People leave. It’s what they do.” Her expression was hard but her eyes were glossy; he had hurt her. Again. “I’m needed back on the floor.”
She swept out of the room and he whirled on Syed, who held up his hands.
“Don’t get mad at me, Pintu. You’ve been practically living with her for the last week. If you didn’t tell her, I’m not the one you should be mad at.”
Amir growled and threw his towel across the kitchen; it landed in a bucket of dirty water. Frustration pulsed through his veins. “I meant to tell her. I just hadn’t decided what to do.”
Syed raised his brows.
“What?” Amir snapped.
Syed raised his brows higher. “You know I have a wife at home,” he said. “When I got on the boat and when I hopped off the boat, it was both of our decisions. You wanted this lady to bloody fancy you and once she does you pull something like this.”
Syed shook his head and Amir knew what he was thinking.
Always making a mess of things.
He had messed up. Again. And he didn’t know how to fix it this time. He hadn’t just kept something from her, he’d kept the biggest thing from her. He hadn’t wanted to admit the truth to her because he could hardly admit it to himself.
I don’t want to go back.
How could he tell someone that his homeland no longer felt like home? That the only place he wanted to be was at the side of a woman who had no use for him in a country that didn’t want his kind? He’d always thought he would go back and change things for his people; what kind of man did it make him if he didn’t? And how could he have told her about the letter without heaping unspoken pressure on their new relationship?
“I’m going to talk her,” he said.
Syed nodded. “Go on. I’ll come get you if an order comes in.”
Amir walked out into the club, which was busier than he’d ever seen it, though it was very late. A man sat at the piano, his fingers flowing over the keys so quickly Amir could hardly see them. A woman at the mic sang a suffragette anthem in a husky voice, jazz style, and the crowd nodded along. He scanned the smoky room and didn’t see Bertha anywhere, so he made his way into the hallway towards her office.
He sensed she wasn’t alone before he turned toward the already open door. Bertha sat on the edge of her desk, her crossed legs exposing smooth skin all the way to her upper thigh—exposed, save for the hand that rested on her knee.
The man who’d had Bertha in the corner that night that seemed so long ago sat comfortably in a chair, his fingertips caressing her knee until he followed her gaze and saw Amir.
“Can I help you, Amir?” she asked. Her face was perfectly composed as she lifted the man’s hand away.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he said, trying to remain calm. He’d already driven her away with his words, and if he couldn’t c
ontain himself he would lose her for good. Even a stubborn ram exercised caution when it met a worthy opponent.
“Well, as you can see, I’m busy.” She flashed her saucy smile, but her eyes were shuttered, dousing the effect.
“I don’t mean to insist, but I think it’s rather important.” He didn’t have to try to keep his voice calm anymore, because he was so beyond anger and despair that he seemed to be operating on another plane. His hands hung limp at his sides; he couldn’t even manage a fist. He felt disconnected from his body, disconnected from the possibility that Bertha had already written him off, and that he’d managed to plummet from Jannah to Jahannam so quickly.
“Oh, so now it’s important.” She nodded, several tight jerks of her head, but he knew it wasn’t because she agreed with him.
“Get in line, buddy,” the man beside her said. He touched Bertha’s knee again, like he had the right to. “There’s enough to go around, if the price is right.”
Bertha started saying something to the man, but Amir didn’t hear it because his numbness had lifted and anger rushed into him, pushing him toward the man in three quick steps. It didn’t matter if he’d already lost her, or even if she had chosen this man over him. He grabbed the man by the lapels of his fine jacket.
“Apologize to her. Now.”
“For what?” the man asked. He wasn’t afraid, and in fact seemed to find the situation amusing, if anything. His gaze went back and forth between the two of them and then he let out an abrupt laugh. “Ohhhhhhhh, I see. This is why you’re trying to renege on our bargain. You’re his woman now?”
What bargain?
It didn’t matter. Amir gave the man a shake. “Bertha is her own woman.”
The man laughed again, then pried Amir’s hands away more easily than Amir would have imagined.
“You got a funny way of showing that,” he said, straightening his shirt. “Shit, Bertha, never would have pegged you for that kind of sister, but I don’t need to force a woman. I’ll call in this debt some other way.”